Parallels to Mass Effect (Battlezone II Extended Story)

[Ded10c]

I realised, after finishing Mass Effect 2, that it shares some remarkable similarities with the extended Battlezone story.

1) Humanity discovers alien technology that advances their own technology by years
2) Humanity discovers alien races through this technology
3) Alien technology turns out to be (at least partly) a weapon intended to, at least partly, play a role in the destruction of all sentient life

There are more, and some of them are quite subtle. Let the hunting begin

[Josiah]

great, now I have to get the mass effect series...

[Zero Angel]

What is 'Battlezone 2 extended story'?

[Red Spot]

I realised, after finishing Mass Effect 2, that it shares some remarkable similarities with the extended Battlezone story.

You mean you noticed it after ME1 & 2, or do you compare BZ2 to ME2?
All you now 'seem' to link to ME2 has already been uncovered and explained in ME1

[Ded10c]

What is 'Battlezone 2 extended story'?

The parts of the story that goes beyond the game. Primarily deriven from Forgotten Enemies and Fleshstorm, as a lot of story material was released around that time and those of us so inclined are still working on meshing everything together.


@RS: I noticed it after playing ME2, but ME1 is indeed where most of the similarities are. I think the big realisation came when playing Arrival, staring down the oncoming Relay... Battlezone's equivalent of course being a Core world.

[bigbadbogie]

Halo is not entirely dissimilar either.

[Nielk1]

They've been ripping us off for years!

[MrTwosheds]

Actually those 3 points are a rough description of the majority of SciFi stories. Which in turn are usually the same stories as non SciFi but with much flashier Knobs on it...

[Ded10c]

You must be reading very different scifi to me, I haven't spotted similarities with anything else

I wonder how many more similarities there are.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Halo is not entirely dissimilar either.

Halo is a blatant ripoff of Larry Niven's 'Ringworld'. Iain Banks also took the idea and ran with it.

[Red Devil]

then there's Avatar...

[Red Spot]

then there's Avatar...

No advanced tech was found there.
No alien race was discovered because of the found tech.
As no tech was found, it would not be able to desctuct sentient life.

I understand what you mean, but the story is turned 180degrees, which makes it quite a different story imo.

[Red Devil]

Avatar is a clone of BZ2. a valuable and rare alien ore is discovered, wars are fought with other races over it , Shabayev/Yelena/Niri, lone wolf joining the other side and going against the big boss, etc.

[Nielk1]

I call it "Dances with Smurfs".

[Ded10c]

I call it "Dances with Smurfs".

I'm not the only person to spot that then.

Also, interesting that, after Space Marines and Indians, somebody else decides to give us Cowboys and Aliens.